Tag Archives: Biography

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Posted on by
1

Synopsis:
How the cells from the cancerous cervix of an impoverished black woman from Baltimore came to be the foundation for basically all scientific research with cells in the world.

Review:
I was very excited to learn that my public library was going to begin lending Kindle books. The list was pretty dismal, but I had heard good things about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks so I decided to give it a try.

Henrietta Lacks was born and raised and ultimately died in poverty. A black woman who married her first cousin and had her first child by him when she was only 14, she died of an unusually aggressive form of cervical cancer that ultimately took over her whole body. While she was being treated at Johns Hopkins, researchers took samples of her cells, as they did with many patients, in the hopes of creating a line of cells that would be immortal–that is, continue to grow and divide infinitely. It had never been done before, but it happened with Henrietta’s cells, dubbed HeLa.

Henrietta didn’t know her cells were taken, nor did her family. Most researchers didn’t give a thought to the real woman behind the cells that offered countless possibilities for scientific inquiry. There were no laws or regulations to cover this kind of usage, and when her family found out, they were angry. But they didn’t find out for decades.

This is a fascinating hybrid of science and biography. Fortunately for Skloot, the Lacks family is colorful beyond anything that could be made up, and the science is easy to make accessible. Great read and a nice non-fiction break.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Posted on by
3

Synopsis:
The true story of a young man who gave up everything to live off the land in Alaska, only to die a painful death by starvation.

Review:
Into the Wild was a quick, fast-paced read that left me both satisfied and wanting to know more. Christopher McCandless’s decision to go his own iconoclastic way towards a wanton death seems crazy to most of us, yet author Jon Krakauer paints such a full picture of his personality that there doesn’t seem to be anything more to say. (But I do think the movie was better!)

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

Posted on by
4

Synopsis:
A collection of essays written by Gladwell and published in the New Yorker.

Review:
Bite-sized is how I like Malcolm Gladwell, and What the Dog Saw contains some of Gladwell’s most memorable essays. His profile of Ron Popeil, creator of the Showtime Rotisserie, stands as one of the finest pieces of writing I’ve ever encountered, and this past spring I assigned it to my writing students, who were suitably enthralled. Gladwell gives you the greatness behind the showman veneer, as well as some of the pathos inherent in selling things on TV.

Another essay that gets me every time is the ketchup piece. Gladwell attempts to explain the conundrum whereby there are numerous kinds of mustard, but only one kind of ketchup, despite the efforts of Popeil-wannabes in creating artisanal blends. He connects ketchup’s potency to its near perfect blend of all five tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami, taking stops along the way to discuss the problems with supermarket cola and the history of Grey Poupon.

The third essay I love combines the profile prowess of the Ron Popeil piece with the historical exegesis of the ketchup piece, and that’s the one about hair color. The woman in the profile is a real-life version of Peggy from “Mad Men,” only with far more moxie and determination and self-awareness. I’m hoping the publication of this book will tip off Matthew Weiner to yet another awesome kind of woman he could include in his already awesome show.

Many thanks to the kind folks at Little, Brown and Hachette Book Group for the advance review copy.

The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
Subtitled “A Plot to Kill the Child King–A Nonfiction Thriller,” this book weaves together the discovery of King Tut’s tomb with his reign as Pharaoh in order to show that he may have been murdered.

Review:
In The Murder of King Tut, James Patterson turns history into potboiler, but I was less than thrilled. The characterizations were cliched and cardboard, and the writing lacked beauty. I was hoping for something along the lines of John Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, but James Patterson doesn’t have the same intellectual rigor, I think.

The Addict by Michael Stein

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
One year in the treatment of a Vicodin addict, as told by the internist who treated her with medication.

Review:
Dr. Michael Stein is an internist specializing in prescribing a drug that blocks the effect of painkillers on a patient. In The Addict, subtitled One Patient, One Doctor, One Year, Stein recounts his journey treating Lucy, a promising young woman whose life has been stunted by an addiction to prescription medication. Lucy is meant to be an Everywoman; a college graduate, she’s a far cry from the stereotypical lower-income addict–unless, of course, you watch “Intervention” on A&E. If you do, you’ll know that Lucy’s story is quite common.

As an internist, Stein uses conversation as a means of diagnosis, not treatment as he would if he were a psychologist. He prescribes a strictly managed drug regimen meant to help Lucy restore her life. In doing so, he spends time talking with her as she describes the life she’d been living and how treatment is changing her.

As a narrative, The Addict was a little thin. In many ways, it’s a suitable companion to “Intervention,” showing what happens after the addict enters treatment. Yet Lucy’s story didn’t feel completely realistic, and I questioned at many points whether or not she was a composite of several of Stein’s patients.

Of course, the story is building to the “why.” What would turn a college-educated young woman into an addict? I don’t want to give it away, but I have to say that I found the story to be perplexing, even fishy. Either someone was covering up a crime or Lucy’s memory of the events was inaccurate. It was very strange to me.

The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller

Posted on by
3

Synopsis:
A literary critic recalls her childhood love affair with CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and her subsequent disappointment at learning that he was a Christian apologist.

Review:
I confess that I was hesitant to read The Magician’s Book for reasons that Laura Miller herself would understand. Narnia is mine, I tell you, mine! I had a Voyage of the Dawn Treader cake for my sixth birthday–and I still have my coverless copy. I have read and re-read this series more times than I can count. Of course it’s really only jealousy that someone else gets to write about something I love. I’m petty that way.

Unlike Miller, I share CS Lewis’s faith. In fact, I could argue that my faith itself is inextricably linked to Lewis’s writings, particularly The Great Divorce and The Problem of Pain. I’ve attended CS Lewis-themed conferences in Oxford and Cambridge twice in my life, and have read every book of his at least once, and in most cases multiple times. His Space Trilogy is another that I love, and my favorite book of his is Til We Have Faces, his retelling of Cupid and Psyche. So my trepidation was not so much about Narnia, but rather about Lewis himself. I am as loyal as I am stubborn, and can’t bear to see my loved ones criticized by anyone but myself.

Thankfully, Miller is well-suited for the task of discussing Lewis. She goes deep into biography and textual analysis, drawing upon Lewis’s scholarly work and personal passions. I found her discussions of the “romance,” a genre that fascinated both Lewis and JRR Tolkein to be scholarly yet readable. Lewis would’ve been proud, I think. I was intrigued by her ideas on how his personal life influenced the way he thought about reading and writing.

Where Miller truly excels is in quantifying the pleasures of reading. Like Lewis (and like me), Miller is a reader to the bone, and whenever she talks about the joys of reading the Chronicles the book really sings. I love when other readers are able to put into words what happens to bookworms like us when our noses get stuck and our minds get lost. Lewis wrote because he loved to read, and in my opinion, those are the kinds of writers I enjoy most.

I was disappointed that Miller failed to engage with any of Lewis’s apologetics, considering that he is as famous for those as he is for Narnia. She tends to lump all Christians in with some stereotype she has of a close-minded, literal Bible-thumper, confusing at one point Evangelicals with fundamentalists. There is some overlap between the two, but they are not one and the same. The kinds of Christians who embrace Lewis tend to be the kinds who also embrace the ambiguity that Miller thinks is so alien to Christianity. What she fails to grasp is that Christianity, at its core, is a faith built on paradox, one with as much to offer the mind as the heart.

If Miller had bothered to explore the Christianity she rejects, she would have discovered that the wildness she loves in Narnia is central, not antithetical, to Christianity. Instead she chose to look through the lenses of her own preconceptions, and the book is weaker for it. Despite this, I think that The Magician’s Book belongs on the bookshelf of any Lewis aficionado. It’s staying on mine.

Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer

Posted on by
5

Synopsis:
A biography of Shirley Jackson, author of the short story “The Lottery,” and one of my favorite authors.

Review:
I was inspired to read this thanks to an email I got from Chaucerian Girl. She expressed an appreciation for Private Demons, Judy Oppenheimer’s biography of the woman I believe to be one of the greatest American writers of the mid-20th century. Continue reading →